May we say that all this nonsense arose out of an aside about the
essentially inaesthetic quality of Jean Barraqué's compositions:
http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=2271.msg77710#msg77710We pointed out that his
Piano Sonata was really very like Ravel's
Bolero, and we are prepared to support this our contention in detail. But regrettably no one (except perhaps Mr. Harp) has responded to this point by showing an inclination to discuss the
Sonata in particular. No one for that matter has even claimed not to prefer the
Beautiful Blue Danube. What a talent for perversely picking up on the parenthetic and ignoring the essential people display!
We would like at some point to publish a short illustrative example of our own music, but will not do so until we are good and ready. One reason we would like to is that this is an especially challenging and interesting kind of audience - one of which one section is almost guaranteed to be antagonistic. Most composers do not have to face this kind of music-hall audience, and it may well be both valuable and instructive to
test experiment and play with one: hardening in the fire and all that what. Or to put it another way one has to construct beforehand and have ready to hand a little unbreakable mirror to reflect hostility back against itself in an irrefutable way. And we encourage for that reason other Members too to discuss and defend their own work in this forum with courage and confidence. An unsympathetic audience is a rare and valuable asset.
Nevertheless certain Members whose efforts - in many cases nugatory - have already been widely disseminated should remind themselves that we are in the position of being able to
apply to them our own seven-step rating system and of figuratively tearing them to pieces in public if they deserve it and if we decide to do so - thus far we have shown only our breeding and innate restraint and refrained from anything of the kind but it does work both ways (as Saint-Saëns observed).
